'Nothing lasts forever': How the industry has pulled together through Covid-19

What I do know is that with every day we are a day closer to the Covid-19 situation being over and that by having a collaborative approach to every single challenge this presents, I honestly believe that we will get out of this sooner rather than later.

It might not really feel like this at the moment, and I’m conscious that advisers in particular are being absolutely bombarded with changes from lenders at present, and are having to re-evaluate cases which they might have considered ‘done and dusted’ a few weeks back. Plus of course they are helping their clients come to terms with the situation, particularly around mortgage payment holidays and what to do next.

That said, we can get through this and, certainly from our perspective, Foundation is here to try and help and support our adviser partners as much as possible, because we truly believe that with Covid-19 ‘nothing lasts forever’.

To that end, I listened in last week on a couple of update calls with both our distributor partners (networks, clubs, etc) and our packager contacts. What struck me was not just the understanding that all had for the position of a specialist lender in this crisis, but the genuine focus on working together.

The calls positively fizzed with energy and ideas about how we could support each other and what we might be able to do next to get to the end of this.

It’s an oft-used phrase at the moment but there was no way you could leave those calls without truly feeling that we were ‘all in this together’ and that there was no hint of any blame being placed with lenders who simply needed to cut their cloth accordingly in these incredible, and somewhat, surreal times.

In a way these are also unprecedented times because, while the Credit Crunch obviously presents something of a touchstone for those of us who were around back then, there are some notable differences, not least the fact that no mortgage stakeholder could ever feel they were culpable in this situation.

Instead, what has happened has been beyond our control and the blame is not ours – in fact I’m not sure it is anyone’s. But, as the youngsters on Love Island are prone to say, ‘it is what it is’ and we’re all having to take decisions that would have been simply unthinkable just a month or two ago.

Having a level of understanding from our partners around the reasoning for why we have done what we’ve done is undoubtedly helpful, and it gives us the confidence to keep looking for potential solutions, whether that is in the area of utilising automated valuations perhaps, or indeed making the decision to focus on existing borrowers across our book so that, every individual who requires one, is able to secure a payment holiday.

These are tricky conundrums to work through, they require thought and they also require us to be as good at communicating these decisions and changes as it is possible to be. Hopefully, we have been able to deliver in this area and, looking forward, we certainly want to keep all advisers, partners and stakeholders, fully informed about what Foundation does next, and the reasoning behind that.

So, even with parts of our business currently ‘on hold’, you’ll continue to hear regularly from us, because we believe you appreciate being kept in the loop and it also means you can plan and prepare accordingly.

Finally, what we can say is that the market will return, and so will we. Of that there is no doubt. It is likely to be a bumpy road for all of us but, with a degree of empathy and a continued commitment for doing right by our partners, we will definitely get to that destination. We look forward to seeing you there.